Viacom head honcho Sumner Redstone is older than Emperor Palpatine but meaner than Darth Vader, a quality he displayed to wondrous effect when he ended Tom Cruise’s 14-year relationship with Viacom’s subsidiary Paramount last month. Redstone helped Cruise through the door with this boot in the ass: “As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal…. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.” It’s beginning to sound as if Tom’s unacceptable conduct might have gone beyond a little couch-hopping. New reports say Cruise dispatched Scientology goons to lean on Paramount had Brad Grey during negotiations over the star’s share of the take from Mission: Impossible 3. Nutty as this might sound, apparently it’s nothing new. Acoording to the link Fox Studios head Bill Mechanic had similar run-ins when John Travolta was looking for a patsy to produce the sci-fi trainwreck Battlefield Earth.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Suri Cruise when you contemplate the years she’ll spend under the control of this whackjob. Although, judging by her emo MySpace page, she’s doing a pretty good job of feeling sorry for herself.
